William Gaddis - The Recognitions

Basil Valentine had started to rise, but let himself down in the chair again without making a sound, his lips open to show his teeth drawn tight together, and turned his eyes down to see the man across from him lower his eyes and seem to wilt, silent, and appearing not to breathe. Valentine waited, and then said gently, — The one you're working on now, another van der Goes?

— Yes, yes it is. He looked up, and drew a deep breath.

— What is it, the subject?

— I… I… it was going to be an Annunciation, that, because they're. well have you ever seen a bad one? I mean by any painter? He held his hands in the air before him, the fingertips almost touching. — It's almost as though. just the idea of the Annunciation, a painter can't. no painter could do it badly.

— The Annunciation? Valentine looked troubled.

— No, I… it isn't. I was going to, I wanted to, but then I got started on this other. this other idea took form and.

— What is it, then?

— It's a… the death of the Virgin.

— But there is one, you know, a splendid one of van der Goes, it's in Brussels I think, isn't it? — Yes, yes, I know it, I know that one. It is splendid, that one. But this one, this one I've done is later, painted later in his life, when the shapes.

— Is it nearly done? Brown demanded, standing over them.

— Yes, it is. It's more than finished, really, he said looking up at Brown.

— More than finished?

— Yes, I… you know, it's finished, it has to be… damaged now.

— That must be difficult, Basil Valentine said.

— It is, it's the most difficult part. Not the actual damaging it, but damaging it without trying to preserve the parts that cost such. well, you know that's where they fail, a good many. painters who do this kind of work, they can't resist saving those parts, and anyone can tell, anyone can tell.

— You call me as soon as it's done then, do you hear me? Brown said, sitting down. He finished his drink quickly. — And we'll get started on the next one now. Valentine's here to…

— I… damn it, you can't just. He looked up at Basil Valentine. — He talks to me as though it was like making patent medicine. He…

— All right my boy, I…

— He heard a Fra Angelico had sold somewhere for a high price once, and he thought I should do a Fra Angelico, toss off a Fra Angelico…

— All right now.

— Like making patent medicine. He turned to Brown. — Do you know why I could never paint one, paint a Fra Angelico? Do you know why? Do you know how he painted? Fra Angelico painted down on his knees, he was on his knees and his eyes full of tears when he painted Christ on the Cross. And do you think I… do you think I…

— Control yourself now, for Christ sake. We have work to do.

— Work? Work? Do you think I… as though I spend my time down there flying balloons.

— "That vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil," Basil Valentine said, stretching his arms and smiling as he looked at both of them.

— All right, Valentine, what is it now? What is this thing of yours?

— Not mine, my dear Brown. Pope. Alexander Pope. " 'But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed,' What then? Is. "

— Not that, God damn it. This idea.

The telephone rang. There was an extension in the hallway, as well as the one near the bar, and Recktall Brown went to the hallway extension.

— He would absolutely have to have Alexander Pope in a box, to enjoy him. He is beyond anything I've ever come upon. Honestly, I never in my life could have imagined that business could live so powerfully independent of every other faculty of the human intelligence. Basil Valentine rested his head back, blowing smoke toward the ceiling, and watching it rise there. — Earlier, you know, he mentioned to me the idea of a novel factory, a sort of assembly line of writers, each one with his own especial little job. Mass production, he said, and tailored to the public taste. But not so absurd, Basil Valentine said sitting forward suddenly.

— Yes, I… 1 know. I know.

— When I laughed. but it's not so funny in his hands, you know. Just recently he started this business of submitting novels to a public opinion board, a cross-section of readers who give their opinions, and the author makes changes accordingly. Best sellers, of course.

— Yes, good God, imagine if… submitting paintings to them, to a cross section? You'd better take out. This color. These lines, and. He drew his hand down over his face, — You can change a line without even touching it. No, he went on after a pause, and Valentine watched him closely, — nothing is funny in his hands. Everything becomes very. real.

— Oh, he's given you some of his lectures too? "Business is cooperation with reality," that one? The one on cleaning fluid, a chemical you can buy for three cents a gallon, which he sold at a quarter a six-ounce bottle? His chalk toothpaste? The breakfast cereal he made that gave people spasms of the colon? Has he told you about the old woman who got spastic colitis from taking a laxative he made, a by-product of heaven knows what. They threw her case out of court. A riotous tale, he entertains with it when he's been drinking. He still makes a pretty penny from some simple chemical that women use for their menstrual periods, such a delicate necessity that the shame and secrecy involved make it possible to sell it at some absurd price.

— Yes, the secrecy.

— What?

— These paintings, selling these paintings, the secrecy of it.

Valentine chuckled. — Of course, he couldn't do any of it alone. Other people do his work for him, get his ideas for him. Who do you think launched this picture here in this country? He motioned to the open reproduction. — Did you read about it?

— Where?

— In the papers. No, you probably never see the newspaper, at that. He didn't tell you, then? He wouldn't, of course. It might interfere.

— Interfere? with what?

— With your work, of course, he's quite frantic about protecting you. I've gathered you're quite as dedicated as those medieval forgers of classical antiquities. Valentine was speaking rapidly and with asperity. — True to your art, so to say?

— True to… yes, that's like saying a man's true to his cancer.

— Don't be upset, don't concern yourself with him, with his explanations of reality.

— But that's what's so strange, it makes so much sense at first, and then if you listen, you. Yes, he understands reality.

— He does not understand reality. Basil Valentine stood up, still, grasping his lapels, and looked down to the lowered face across the table. — Recktall Brown is reality, he said, and after a pause where neither of them moved, turned on a toe and idled out into the room. — A very different thing, he added over his shoulder, and stopped to light a cigarette.

Recktall Brown's voice reached them in the separate phrases of telephone conversation, — Not a dollar more, God damn it., at one point, at another, — God damn it, not a dollar less.

— But let me tell you about discovering this van der Goes. It might amuse you. It was taken to London, secretly of course, and modified with tempera before it was brought back to America, a crude job of overpainting on a glue finish, which would wash right off. It was such an obvious bad job that even customs discovered it. As much as it pained them, poor fellows, since they collect ten per cent on anything they can prove is a copy or an imitation. But there was the genuine, duty-free, original work of art underneath. As a matter of fact, I was called in to help verify it. You see how much we trust your work. And of course everyone respected the owner's "business secret" about where he'd got it. After that incident people were predisposed to accept it.